On this week's show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the possibility of Amazon releasing a home console of some sort this year, a study that says relaxing games make people more prosocial, Killer Instinct's new jail system for rage quitters, the PS3 trade-in for Xbox One promotion from Microsoft, and Microsoft buying Gears of War from Epic. Download Episode 86 now: SuperPAC Episode 86 (1 hour, 11 minutes) 81 MB.

Candy Crush Saga maker and game publisher King has yanked the game Pac-Avoid from its portal after it was revealed on Friday that the company had allegedly hired developer Epic Shadow to quickly clone Matthew Cox's Scamperghost. On Friday Cox claimed that Epic Shadow was hired by King to clone his game because negotiations to bring it to the company's catalog had fallen through. Today Matt Porter, the Epic Shadow developer who created the game for King, says that he was lied to and - with his game being taken down - he feels like King has thrown him under the bus.

Here's the problem with letting a bunch of different PC manufacturers make something and use a brand like "Steam Machines" - you are going to get some wildly different products and price ranges that can be pretty darned costly for rank and file consumers whose last names aren't "Rockefeller," "Bloomberg," "Trump," etc. That's what is happening with Alienware's version(s) of the Steam Machine.

Indie developers including the makers of The Witness, Thomas Was Alone, VVVVVV, and Ridiculous Fishing, are railing against YouTube and Google over their new copyright detection policies after being the target of false copyright claims on videos of their own games.

Mike Bithell, creator of puzzle platformer game Thomas Was Alone, was the target of a claim by a group called 'Indmusic' for "systematically" claiming rights to footage of his game. He lashed out at the group via Twitter:

Florida-based political group The National Liberty Foundation is catching some heat this morning for posting anti-immigration propaganda from Bioshock Infinite, a game that puts such forms of thinking under a microscope by focusing on an isolated society, its leader and the movement that wants to keep "America pure." The group describes itself as a conservative coalition made up of citizens that identify themselves as part of the Tea Party movement.

Microsoft has confirmed that it has raised prices on the digital downloads of Ryse, Forza Motorsport 5 and Dead Rising 3 in the UK. The games were initially offered at £45 when the system launched on Nov. 22 in the region, but today those games costs £50 each.

By all accounts online retailer Zavvi made a mistake when it mailed out a PlayStation Vita and Tearaway bundle to UK customers who simply ordered only the PS Vita game, but the company's response to customers is what's making news this morning. According to Eurogamer, the retailer has sent customers who received the PS Vita bundle by accident emails filled with ultimatums and legal threats.

A 19-year-old man who thought he was buying an Xbox One on eBay instead was shocked to learn that he had purchased a photo of an Xbox One instead. 19-year-old United Kingdom resident Peter Clatworthy paid £450 +£8 shipping (around $750) for a piece of paper, according to the Nottingham Post.

Earlier today Microsoft offered instructions similar to Sony's (for the PS4) on how to download the Day One update for its Xbox One, put it on a USB drive and apply it offline. Then they removed it. The 20-step guide for downloading the latest Xbox One firmware to a USB stick was pulled after news about it got out, and Microsoft responded by saying that it was important that consumers log onto Xbox Live at least once when they get their shiny new console beginning tomorrow.

The Xbox One will ship without some audio features, and some still in "beta," according to multiple sources (as reported by Polygon). The Xbox One will ship without support for Dolby encoding, according to what Microsoft director of product planning Albert Penello posted on a NeoGAF thread today.

Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has fined Samsung and two local PR firms for what it described as an organized campaign to post positive reviews of its products, while maligning competitors' products. Samsung reportedly carried this plan out through two local public relations firms who used a "large number of hired writers and designated employees" to get the job done. Samsung and the two local firms were fined $100,000 each, though the original fine it faced was much higher - as much as $1 million.

EB Games Australia has apologized publicly for a Grand Theft Auto V publicity stunt at one of its stores. Apparently a Grand Theft Auto V display in one of its Queensland stores used sherbert as fake cocaine.

"Regrettably, one of our EB Games store locations in Queensland set-up an unauthorised display within the store in support of the launch of the Grand Theft Auto V video game," Debra McGrath, EB's national brand, events and marketing manager said.

A publicity stunt by several Micromania employees in Montargis (a town south of Paris, France) to celebrate the launch of Grand Theft Auto V led to a frenzy of law enforcement agents who thought something real was going on. The employees dressed up as criminals complete with face masks and toy guns.

Wired contributor Rachel Edidin has joined a growing contingent of writers and game developers that say they won't be attending PAX events in the future. Edidin says that a Q&A with Mike Krahulik (the artist of the web comic Penny Arcade and co-founder of PAX) this weekend was the final straw that broke the camel's back for her. She is not alone in that assertion.

Australian nurse Katrina Fincham had struck it big by playing World of Warcraft. After earning around $75,000 by farming and selling gold in the popular MMORPG from Blizzard, she decided to convert that cold hard cash into cold hard gold bullion. After doing that she put it in her wall safe at her Adelaide home. All was right with the world, but then something horrible happened: her house was robbed and her wall safe was emptied!

The Wii U version of Ubisoft's next Splinter Cell title apparently WILL have multiplayer but it WON'T have offline multiplayer. Ubisoft producer Liu Jim told Nintendo Life that Splinter Cell: Blacklist for the Wii U won't have four-player local co-op because the company just didn't have enough time to devote to it before it ships. The game will ship on all platforms at the same time - August 20.

Update: Rich Ferraro, Vice President of Communications for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), was kind enough to offer his opinion on the WBC's planned protest of GaymerX. He also confirmed that members of his organization plan on attending the event.

A video game recently debuted (July 11) at a Russian Orthodox youth festival in Moscow that encouraged players to kill members of the feminist punk-rock collective Pussy Riot. The game, "Don't Let Pussy Riot Into The Cathedral," lets players use an Orthodox cross to kill the women before they enter a domed white church. Throughout the game, Pussy Riot's "Punk Prayer For Putin," which was performed in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral in February 2012 to protest the all powerful Russian leader, plays in the background.

According to Polygon, the iOS version of Eidos' and Square Enix's Deus Ex: The Fall disables firing on jailbroken devices. Fans who just happen to have jailbroken iOS devices complained about the problem on the game's product page and in this Reddit thread.

Showing that at least a handful of news outlets are chasing the truth on Microsoft's new system that allows game publishers to shakedown consumers on used games, CVG, GameSpot and MCV have collectively contacted ten high profile third-party publishers to ask if they plan on using the new system including Bethesda, Activision, Capcom, Take-Two, Namco Bandai, Electronic Arts, Sega, Square Enix, and Konami.

The very first porn-related app for Google Glass has been banned by Google, along with any other applications that someone might think of in the future. The application created by software developer MiKandi called "Tits & Glass" allowed Google Glass users to record videos and take pictures of sexual partners and share them with other users of the app who could then rate them.

If rights holders had their way they would have the ability to install rootkits and deploy malware that would include Ransomeware (restricted access to your computer until you pay them a fee) on to the computer systems of hackers and illegal file downloaders in order to fight piracy and cyber attacks. This may sound a little too over-the-top, but these are just some of the crazy ideas presented in a new report by the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property.

A New York Times article from earlier this week about the FBI's attempt to expand the scope of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and the subsequent response to it from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) should raise alarm bells for anyone that does anything on the Internet.

While New Jersey Governor Chris Christie may not let his children play Call of Duty or any other mature rated games, and even though retailers like GameStop and the ESRB work hand-in-hand to make sure his children can't even buy those games without some sort of identification to prove their age, it hasn't stopped the governor from convening a task force and proposing new laws that would require that parents give permission to buy the games children can't get their hands on.

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PHX Corp: I launched my spotify account today, and I kinda went a little overboard with adding music03/31/2015 - 3:59pm

Sora-Chan: Con't. Games like AC are a pain to someone like me who likes to play games in order. So when a game gets too many releases too quickly, it puts me off. Only exceptions are games that have no interconnected underlying stories like the FF games.03/31/2015 - 2:53pm

Sora-Chan: Wikipedia has rarely let me down on matters like this. But yeah... AC needs a break.. like two.. or three... or eight years.03/31/2015 - 2:51pm

Conster: There's 9 already?! I think I played 1, 2, and the ones inbetween 2 and 3.03/31/2015 - 2:23pm

Sora-Chan: Con't There are now Nine... of just the main entries into the series. There are 13 more in the "other games" department.03/31/2015 - 2:15pm

Sora-Chan: I tried to get into AC. Was having a decent time with the first one, at which point they had already released three titles. Then a fourth came out... then a fifth... the wall kept growing before I could finish the first.03/31/2015 - 2:14pm

Daniel Lewis: I think ubisoft should give AC a break before it's milked to death,and i'm a big fan of the games03/31/2015 - 1:15pm

Daniel Lewis: The only thing said i disagree with is the final quote on Men's experiences are seen to be universal but women are gendered,though doesn't anita say that games with male protagonists are male power fantasies,so in turn both are gendered03/31/2015 - 1:08pm

Daniel Lewis: i found the video to be much better than any of the TvW series and it's about time the positive women are put in the spotlight03/31/2015 - 1:06pm

Daniel Lewis: So feministfrequency released a positive female character video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXmj2yJNUmQ03/31/2015 - 1:05pm

Daniel Lewis: I think the guy who made the direct leak said it was an april fools joke when a real one was announced03/31/2015 - 12:43pm

MaskedPixelante: No way Nintendo would let information like that get out. Remember, they shut down a memoir about the localization of Earthbound by enforcing a 20 year old NDA on the author.03/31/2015 - 12:42pm

james_fudge: Conster: the larger issue is that Ind. does not protect LGBTQ+ people under state law03/31/2015 - 12:11pm

PHX Corp: @MP I think it is confirmed(not an April Fools joke) http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/31/nintendo-direct-confirmed-for-wednesday-april-1st/03/31/2015 - 12:00pm

Conster: Apparently Pence intends to amend SB101 so denying service isn't allowed - without explicitly protecting LGBT+ and while still allowing the many other things you can get away with now if it's motivated by your religious beliefs.03/31/2015 - 11:53am

MaskedPixelante: http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/30/rumour-nintendo-direct-on-april-1st/ A supposed full leak of tomorrow's Nintendo Direct, so you can all laugh and laugh about how wrong it is.03/31/2015 - 11:35am

PHX Corp: http://kotaku.com/why-a-tekken-7-character-is-being-called-a-phoney-1694724959 Why a Tekken 7 Character Is Being Called a Phoney03/31/2015 - 10:08am

Michael Chandra: Argh. Anyway, I'm glad that move was made. Wonder if it counts, can he just declare it like that? 03/31/2015 - 9:27am